


I'm not real

by The_Infinant_One



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Child!Peter, Deadpool Thought Boxes, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Medical Trauma, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicide, Torture, hallucination
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 00:10:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15424701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Infinant_One/pseuds/The_Infinant_One
Summary: When Peter was thrown into the cell next to Wade, Wade didn't expect him to get so attached to the child. He watched Peter grow, helped him survive the torment that Weapon X was known for, then an explosion happens that splits Peter and Wade apart. Living with PTSD, Wade suffers the consequences alone, walking through his life struggling to come to terms with the guilt that plagued him when he failed Peter





	I'm not real

**Author's Note:**

> Another Spideypool story, because writing them is fun
> 
> I wrote this one for fun and then decided to post it. I had fun writing this one
> 
> Writing Wade and his boxes are hard, but I hope I did okay.. apologies if it's OOC

The thing about being held captive is that the brutal assault on a person's body isn’t the worst part. 

The worst part of being held captive and being tortured is when you're left alone to rot and escape into dangerous thoughts with no anchor to stop you. 

It’s when you lay down feeling the ghost of the needles and blades with nothing distract you from the pain. It’s when your thoughts are so loud because the sounds of blades whirring and the electricity from blinding bright lights aren’t buzzing to quiet the voices in your head. It’s when you have time to reevaluate your life and the people in it, where you went wrong and what you could have done right. What you would have, could have, and should have said to that one person you desperately wanted to talk to. That person you could imagine going about their day in the sun  _living_ , while you're stuck in a cell, dying, falling into depths of depression, hoping that each time you’re wheeled out the doctors decide to pull the plug.

But they don't. 

The worst part is when the doctors come in and treat you nicely after they brutally assault every inch of your being. After you're stripped away, beaten, broken, robbed of your existence, and then they slowly build it up again. It’s when you’re left alone in a white cell with thick glass walls going mad while doctors come and go and observe you like a wild animal.

The white cell with a white mattress and a white porcelain urinal looking out at boring, white walls reeking of disinfectant chemicals and fresh paint. Everything was white, except for the dark bruises and blood crusted on his skin.

It can drive a man insane in days.

_Days_

Wade’s been here for a little over a year.

Put through stressful situation after stressful situation, even after mutating.

He’s seen everything,  _experienced_ everything, and yet they seemed to keep him alive for sick games, just to play with his limits. It seemed they didn’t want to mutate him, but test his limits. What would cause the infamous, annoying, Wade Wilson to break.

He thought he saw everything, almost every torture method in the books (Hell, he was a victim in the majority of them), all the poor bastards aging from late teens to the elderly, he’s heard the screams being able to differentiate which screams belonged to who and, depending on the pitch, which torture device they were under. Most times the bodies left and never returned.

He thought he saw everything these evil fucks were capable of until he woke up to a new victim in the cell next to him. The cells were split with thick glass covering even thicker white painted iron bars on each side so he could easily see his neighbor (and so the guards didn’t have a blind spot to anything going on in any of the cells). Since he’s been here he’s seen over a good dozen victims come and go. His last neighbor was some poor woman in her early 20’s who was reduced to a pile of mush, her brain fried to the point of no return. She would rock back and forth screaming and crying, mumbling a bunch of shit about her life that Wade couldn’t care about. That was another thing; you couldn’t care in this place or that would get you killed. It was part of his mental rules to survive.

So when Wade saw the new victim next to him, he instantly got infuriated mental rules be damned. He thought he was hallucinating at first. It wouldn't be the first time he hallucinated. The people here wouldn’t be that cruel to bring in a kid, so why was he hallucinating the sound of a child? He remembered him and Vanessa talking about children before he was taken, maybe that was it? 

It couldn’t have been, he hadn’t thought of Vanessa in a long time. He wouldn't allow himself to think of her anymore. She was a beacon of hope in the beginning, and then the doctors turned it into something vile. 

He looked up from his cot to get a better look around and definitely saw the back of a child in the corner of the next cell curled up in a ball.

 **{Ooh, it IS a child}** his white box woke up and exclaimed

 **[Or a super tiny man]** the yellow box followed soon after

“It’s a child dipshit” Wade murmured to himself. The boxes inside his head driving him mad. He couldn't complain though, he had a beautiful ten minutes of peace with out them. 

“Hey,” Wade attempted to get the kid’s attention, coughing instead, his throat hoarse and scratchy from all the yelling he did the previous day. He tried again, clearing his throat, “hey kid!”

The kid jumped and looked at Wade with wide eyes.

Wide, brown eyes that were rimmed red and swollen from tears. Curly, brown locks fell over them and his medical gown almost enveloped him. He was so fucking thin.

**{Seee? It is a kid!}**

**[Orr maybe he has that one disorder that Ester girl had in Orphan]**

“How old are you?” Wade ignored the voices. Getting an age would hopefully end the discussion.   
  


“S-s-seven,” The kid stuttered, his voice wet with tears and fear.

  
_God_

**{He won’t last long in here}**

**[Imagine him screaming, how pretty that would sound]**

“Shut up,” Wade snapped, ignoring any thoughts of that child in pain, even though it was bound to happen.

With a groan, he rolled off his cot and walked over to the back corner where the two cells met and sat, leaning his back against the white painted wall as he looked through the iron bars. The kid was still huddled in the further corner, parallel to his spot in his own cell.

“What’s your name?” Wade asked gently.

**[ooh, first name basis already]**

“I can’t... I can’t remember,” The child whispered, barely audible.

**{can't remember or won’t tell?}**

“What do you remember?”

“Nothing.”

Wade left it alone, pacing restlessly in his cell, talking to himself until guards came rushing in, aiming their guns at Wade’s cell before letting him out. It was a routine at this point, guards came in, guns aimed, three or four brave soldiers would come in and try taking Wade down, Wade would knock one or two out before getting sedated, and then he’d be strapped down and experimented on, torn apart and grown back together again.

Except this time, before the guards opened his cell, they opened the child’s. Wade watched as the kid stood up, shaking, back pressed against the wall as the two guards grabbed him under his arms and drug him away kicking and screaming.

**[Listen to those screams!]**

**{So innocent. Pure.}**

**[How much you wanna bet they’ll cut his chords?]**

_No, they like to hear their victims scream._ Wade hated his own thoughts, hated how morbidly right they were. 

“What are you doing with the kid?” Wade demanded when it was his turn to be taken. Guess today was a special day. Instead of knocking out two guards, he managed to make four clean hits on four guards before being beaten to the ground. His question and many questions following were ignored as he was manhandled into a gurney, a needle going into his neck to sedate him. 

\----

After another useless day of being cut open, sewn together, and washed down, Wade landed with a thud onto the cold ground, his body still working its magic healing powers on his ribs, noticing immediately the child wasn’t there.

 _‘He’s more than just an experiment’_   the annoying British voice of Francis rang through his ears. It wasn’t a good explanation, but it was one all the same.

**{maybe he was lucky and died on the first day}**

**[Or they’re just having fun]**

Wade listened and even joined in on the debate whether the kid made it the first official day of the worst camp ever when the familiar sound of the cell doors hissed open. He sat up immediately to see the child being thrown into the empty cell like a sack of potatoes, the impact making a sound that made Wade wince.

**[That had to hurt]**

When the guards left Wade tried getting the kid’s attention, but the child remained motionless.

**[Maybe he is dead]**

**{Ooh you have a corpse for a neighbor! Imagine watching him rot. The smell—}**

"He's not fucking dead!" Wade yelled out loud to unsuccessfully quiet the voices, "they wouldn't waste a cell on a dead body..."

Wade looked closer to see the slow, but definitely rise and fall of the child’s chest. Eventually, the child managed to crawl to the cot. Wade watched silently, closely, as the movements were sluggish, giving enough time for Wade to see a brand and tattooed numbers on the child’s right arm.

The brand looked familiar, but he couldn’t place where he saw it before. The numbers were basic knowledge, it marked what patient he was. What Wade didn’t understand was why Peter was marked 0003, when Wade himself was marked 0647.

**{Remember what old Dish Soap said?}**

_He’s more than just an experiment_

Wade wondered what secret experiments Weapon X had going on that had to include a child.

\----

The days moved on, the child still not talking, but answering Wade’s questions as best as he could. Wade asked every basic get-to-know you question in the book only to get ‘I don’t know’ as a response. 

 **{Broken record, broken record, broken, broken, oh so, so broken}**  Yellow seemed to sing

**[Brainwashed, memory swipe, he just doesn't want to talk to your ugly face]**

**{Ooh is the little boy repulsed? Wouldn't doubt it. Who'd want to talk to a scarred disfigured monster like yourself?}**

Wade yelled loudly in his cell. A broken, desperate yell.

He knew nothing about the child. Until, that is, when he overheard Francis and someone talking about the child. With his mutated powers, Wade could hear slightly better than the average human, which didn’t say much.

“How’s Peter doing?” A man’s voice asked.  
  


“The child’s doing fine, no need to worry. His body’s responding well to the tests”

“Ha, ‘fine’, I know what you sick fucks do to people down here. I swear to god if he dies—”

“I assure you that he will come out of this alive, no need to worry.”

“No need?” the man sounded exasperated, “He’s still my son!”

“Mr. Parker, he’s our property now. You gave over your rights as a father the day you signed a contract to give over your son for your wife’s life.”  
“She had cancer, I would have done anything to save her.”

“And you did.

“I—”

“We held up our end, you held up yours. Hell, we even gave you seven years with him. Fond memories I presume?”  
  
There was inaudible mumbling and Wade strained to hear more.

“Listen, go home to your wife. Have another child and don’t give that one up. Forget about Peter, he’s already forgotten about you.”

“What did you do to him,” The voice sounded cold as ice.

“We like to build our own foundation” was all the answer the mystery man received. “He’ll have new memories of you soon enough”

\--------------------

_Peter_

Wade pondered in his cell, wondering if he should tell the child his name, or anything else he heard.

  
**{Father gave him up, boo hoo}**

**[Did you hear though? They did have a cure for cancer]**

**{The father clearly didn’t care before}**

**[They could have given you the cure. Before turning you into this hideous pathetic waste]**

**{Built from their own foundation}**

It made sense in the fact that they would want to wipe memories but didn’t make sense what for

Peter came back, this time bruised and bloodied, his breath wheezing every time he breathed in. He went to his cot like usual, but this time moving restlessly till he started gasping for air, hyperventilating and choking out strangled sobs.

Wade stood immediately, walking over wondering what shit they did to him until he realized the child was just having a panic attack. This, this he could work with.

“Hey kid. Kid listen to me,” He yelled loud enough for Peter to hear him, watching Peter inch himself into a sitting position against the white wall, clawing at himself. The bruises on his arms and legs showed themselves in the pattern of fingerprints, littering his skin.

“Hey! Shut it will ya?” Some other patient yelled somewhere off to who-the-fuck-cares. Wade ignored the yelling the patient and others were creating, pounding on the glass with his fist to make Peter throw his hands up to his ears and look frantically up at him, fear in his eyes and more bruises around his throat and jawline.

“What did they do to me?” He asked, tears falling down his face.

“I don’t know, but you’re having a panic attack as a result. You can get over it though, you just need to breathe,” Wade slid down to his knees so he was more Peter’s level.

“I  _can’t_ ” Peter gasped, arching his back.

“Yes, you can. I’ll walk you through how to make it stop, okay? Wade asked, watching the kid squeeze his eyes shut and nod painfully.

Wade talked Peter through, telling him to hold his breath and exhale slowly. It took a good bit of coaxing, but soon Peter started actually listening and quieted down. Once Wade had Peter quieted down, he sat next to Peter’s cell in the corner, once again inspecting Peter’s form, now curled up with his knees to his chest. He’s already lost a lot of weight since he’s been there and it’s only been what, a couple weeks max?   
  
He sat, conversing with his boxes some more before getting fed up with their negativity. Peter still sat, only a few feet away from Wade.

“Your name’s Peter,” Wade whispered suddenly as if he said it too loudly Peter would be taken away. Which, in this case, may actually be the case.

He turned his head, resting his forehead against the cool glass and watched Peter slowly look up at him.

“How’d you find that out,” Peter asked, his voice small and exhausted.

  
“Overheard some of those douche-canals talkin'”

  
“Did you hear anything else?”

  
Wade stayed silent, deciding not to lie in the end, “Your dad. He’s the one I heard it from.”

“My… my dad?”

“Yeah, talkin to one of these “doctors”. Wade said and replayed the events.

“No... my dad... He wouldn’t care, he’s dead.”

“When did you remember this?”

“Y... yesterday…” Peter furrowed his brows, thinking.

“Peter, I don’t know which is true, but they mentioned something about building you from the foundation up. I think they wiped your memory and are replacing them with altered ones.”  

He remembered one cell neighbor who they did that too. Drove them mad.

“What can I believe then?” Peter asked, bringing his hands through his hair, pulling on the side.

“Don’t believe anything," Wade didn't have to think about the answer, "don’t believe anything about your past or what the doctors tell you, only believe what's happening now,” Wade suggested, really hoping Peter would listen.

“You’re real right?” Peter asked, looking smaller than ever.

Wade chuckled humorlessly at that, “As real as the hairs on your head”

“What if that isn’t even real?” The child asked, but in a different tone than Wade’s heard from him. It was almost humorous. And god be damned if Wade wasn’t gonna at least chuckle.

 

**Author's Note:**

> What did you think?  
> Comments are always lovely and appreciated, they keep me motivated to write and they'll literally make my day


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